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Our lady of the stations

Susan Bigioni is back in the Toronto Transit Commission's makeshift recording studio at the Bathurst and Davenport Hillcrest Complex. Customers had complained that she said &quot;Glencairen&quot; station, not &quot;Glencairn.&quot; After 20 minutes of recording and re-recording, her announcement is close enough.

"It's neat that your voice out there," says Susan Bigioni, the unofficial voice of the TTC, who's happy to be of help to visually impaired riders. (VINCE TALOTTA / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

By Christina KuSpecial to the Star

Sun., June 3, 2007

Susan Bigioni is back in the Toronto Transit Commission's makeshift recording studio at the Bathurst and Davenport Hillcrest Complex. Customers had complained that she said "Glencairen" station, not "Glencairn." After 20 minutes of recording and re-recording, her announcement is close enough.

It's Bigioni's automated station announcements that millions of riders hear on the Yonge, University, Spadina and Sheppard subway lines each day. Her calm voice will also be heard along the Bloor-Danforth route by the end of this year.

"I smile every time I hear it," says Bigioni, 45, a TTC communications assistant and now its unofficial voice. "It's neat that your voice is out there."

When the commission needs a new public announcement, it calls staff radio-shop technician Fred Sottile. Last year, when Sottile couldn't find an announcer for a March Break pass announcement, he contacted his friend Bigioni. She had never recorded anything before, but Sottile liked the way her voice sounded. "It's relaxed but won't put you to sleep," he says, "and it won't make you jump out of your seat either."

Bigioni hasn't been paid extra for her voice work, but she says it's enough to know she's helping people. "We don't understand what it's like to be on a train and not be able to read the stations," says the mother of two girls, aged 20 and 16.

The TTC first began planning automated station announcements about 10 years ago. Then, after a 2005 ruling by the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal said the commission discriminated against visually impaired riders because drivers didn't routinely announce stops, the utility fast-tracked the program.

The usual announcer was away on maternity leave, so Sottile suggested Bigioni, a first-generation Italian-Canadian who had joined the TTC in 1981 to work as a payroll administrator.

As a TTC senior design engineer, Kent Bayley was responsible for implementing the announcement system. To choose the right voice, he hired a marketing company to survey four focus groups – adults, seniors, students and the visually impaired. In the end, it came to a close tie between Bigioni, favoured for her clarity and intelligibility, and TTC employee Kevin Carrington, favoured for the sound of his voice. Recalls Bayley: "I picked Sue based on the logic of why we were doing this – for the people who most needed it. I spoke with people who were blind, and their description of how horrid it can be, not knowing where you are."

To time each announcement correctly, engineers planted grey transponder boxes along the tracks. After passing a transponder, a subway's antennae picks up the transmitted message and matches it to an announcement ID in the subway's computer. Without any work from the driver, Bigioni's voice is automatically broadcast throughout the train.

Eventually, the entire TTC system – buses and streetcars as well as subways – will carry automated announcements.

Bigioni, who lives in Ajax with her daughters and her fiancé, won't be used for streetcars and buses. But she's content with how far-reaching her voice already is.

And whenever her girls go downtown late at night, she reminds them that their mother is there, watching over them on the subway.

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